WASHINGTON (AP) - The unemployment rate fell to a 28-year low of 4.3 percent in April as the supercharged U.S. economy churned out 262,000 new jobs with only manufacturing showing any ill effects from the Asian currency crisis.

The 0.4 percentage point drop in the unemployment rate underscored just how strong the U.S. economy remains and was likely to increase pressure on the Federal Reserve to start raising interest rates to cool things down to prevent inflation from re-igniting.

"We now have a labor market that is as tight as can be," said Robert Dederick, economist at Northern Trust Co. in Chicago. "You have to reach into the nooks and crannies to get workers in the United States now."

Cynthia Latta, an economist at Standard & Poor's DRI, said today's report made a Fed rate hike much more likely. She noted that the closely watched figure on hourly earnings show wages in the new report are 4.4 percent higher than a year ago, a level she said will cause concern at the central bank about wage pressures.

Wall Street, which has been whipsawed in recent weeks over rising and falling concerns about Fed rate hikes, took today's report badly with prices in the interest-sensitive bond market plunging.

The Labor Department report today said that the 262,000 increase in payroll jobs was in part a bounceback from a drop of 24,000 jobs in March. That decline, which had been the first in more than two years, had been blamed on weather factors.

El Nino had given the country unseasonably warm weather in January and February and moved up the hiring of construction workers, while an unusually wet mild and wet March cut into hiring at service industries.

For April, construction added 35,000 jobs following the March decline of 85,000 jobs and retail employment was up 44,000, with most of that gain coming at restaurants and bars.

In all, service industries added 139,000 jobs with much of the gain coming at temporary help firms, indicating that businesses faced with a shrinking poll of workers are turning more and more to temporary help firms to plug the gap.